While East Indian remains in use, the term South Asian is often chosen instead. The U.S. government coined Native American to refer to the indigenous peoples of the United States, but American Indian remains popular among the indigenous and general populations.

According to the 2010 United States Census,[15] the Asian Indian population in the United States grew from almost 1,678,765 in 2000 (0.6% of U.S. population) to 2,843,391 in 2010 (0.9% of U.S. population), a growth rate of 69.37%, one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States, although it is still one of the smallest communities in the US, not even completely one percent.[16][17][18][19]

While the table above provides a picture of the population of Indian American (alone) and Asian Americans (alone) in some of the metropolitan areas of the US, it is incomplete as it does NOT include multi-racial Asian Americans. Please note that data for multi-racial Asian Americans has not yet been released by the US Census Bureau.

The United States is host to the second largest Indian diaspora on the planet

In 2006, of the 1,266,264 legal immigrants to the United States, 58,072 were from India. Immigration from India is currently at its highest level in history. Between 2000 and 2006, 421,006 Indian immigrants were admitted to the U.S., up from 352,278 during the 1990–1999 period.[28] According to the 2000 U.S. census, the overall growth rate for Indians from 1990 to 2000 was 105.87 percent. The average growth rate for the U.S. was 7.6 percent.

Indians comprise 16.4 percent of the Asian-American community. In 2000, the Indian-born population in the U.S. was 1.007 million. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 1990 and 2000, the Indian population in the U.S. grew 130% – 10 times the national average of 13%.

A joint Duke University – UC Berkeley study revealed that Indian immigrants have founded more engineering and technology companies from 1995 to 2005 than immigrants from the UK, China, Taiwan and Japan combined.[32] A 1999 study by AnnaLee Saxenian reported that a third of Silicon Valley scientists and engineers were immigrants and that Indians are the second largest group of Asian-born engineers (23%) following the Chinese (51%). Her research showed that in 1998, seven percent of high-technology firms in Silicon Valley were led by Indian CEOs.[33] A recent study shows that 23% of Indian business school graduates take a job in United States.[34]

Indian Americans continuously outpace every ethnic group socioeconomically to reach the summit of the U.S. Census charts.[35] Indian Americans, along with other Asian Americans, have attained the highest educational levels of all ethnic groups in the U.S. 71% of all Indians have a bachelor's or higher degree (compared to 28% nationally and 44% average for all Asian American groups). Almost 40% of all Indians in the United States have a master’s, doctorate, or other professional degree, which is five times the national average.[36][37]Thomas Friedman, in his recent book, The World is Flat, explains this trend in terms of brain drain, whereby the best and brightest elements in India emigrate to the U.S. in order to seek better financial opportunities.[38]

A study from Pew Research Center in June 2012 showed more than 80 percent of Indian were holding college or advanced degrees[40] surpassing the previously Taiwanese average figure of 74.1%. Taiwanese American men still attained the highest bachelor's degree among men at 80.0% but only 68.3% of Taiwanese American women had attained a bachelor's degree with Indian American women having the highest percentage among women of all ethnicities and Indian American men being second only to the Taiwanese American men. 39.1% of all Taiwanese in the United States possess a master’s, doctorate or other professional degree, which is nearly four times the national average [41][42] compared with 40% of Indians's who have a master’s, doctorate or other professional degree, which is five times the national average.[36][37]

Hindi radio & stations are available in areas with high Indian populations, for example, Easy96.com in the New York City metropolitan area, KLOK 1170 AM IN San Francisco, RBC Radio; Radio Humsafar, Desi Junction in Chicago; Radio Salaam Namaste in Dallas; and Music Masala, FunAsia Radio, Sangeet Radio, Radio Naya Andaz in Houston and Washington Bangla Radio on Internet from the Washington DC Metro Area. There are also some radio stations broadcasting in Tamil and Telugu within these communities.[52][53] Houston-based Kannada Kaaranji radio focuses on a multitude of programs for children and adults.[54]

Diya TV, a national South Asian TV network, is available in San Francisco KTSF, Chicago WRJK-LD, Los Angeles KSCI, Dallas KLEG-CD, Houston KVQT-LD free to air and can be watched with a TV antenna.

There are also Catholic Indians hailing originally from Goa, who attend the same services as other American Catholics, but may celebrate the feast of Saint Francis Xavier as a special event of their identity.[65][66][67] The Indian Christian Americans have formed the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America (FIACONA) to represent a network of Indian Christian Organizations in the United States and Canada. FIACONA estimates the Indian American Christian population to be 600,000.[68] The large Parsi community is represented by the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America.[69]Indian Jews are perhaps the smallest organized religious group among Indian Americans, consisting of approximately 350 members in the United States. They form the Indian Jewish Congregation of USA with headquarters in New York City.[70]

Like the terms "Asian American" or "South Asian American", the term "Indian American" is also an umbrella label applying to a variety of views, values, lifestyles, and appearances. Although Asian-Indian Americans retain a high ethnic identity, they are known to assimilate into American culture while at the same time keeping the culture of their ancestors.[71] They may assimilate more easily than many other immigrant groups because they have fewer language barriers (since English is widely spoken in India among professional classes), more educational credentials (as Indian immigrants are disproportionately well-educated[citation needed]). Additionally, Indian culture, like many other Asian cultures, puts emphasis upon achievement and personal responsibility of the individual as a reflection upon the family and community.

In countries such as the United States, Canada, and until more recently, the United Kingdom, there has been a large influx of Indian immigrants, beginning in the late 1960s. As a result of assimilation, mixed European and Indian backgrounds are becoming more prevalent. The 2001 U.S. Census Bureau’s publication of the 56,497,000 married couples, shows that overall the percentage of Indian males married to White females (7.1%) was higher than Indian females marrying with White males (3.7%); whilst for those who were US born the reverse was true with more Indian females marrying with White males (39.1%) than Indian males married to White females (27.3%).[72]

1913: A.K. Mozumdar became the first Indian-born person to earn U.S. citizenship, having convinced the Spokane district judge that he was "Caucasian" and met the requirements of naturalization law that restricted citizenship to free white persons. In 1923, as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that no person of East Indian origin could become a naturalized American citizen, his citizenship was revoked.

1914: Dhan Gopal Mukerji obtains a graduate degree from Stanford University, studying also at University of California, Berkeley and later goes on to win the Newbery Medal in 1928, and thus becomes the first successful India-born man of letters in the United States, as well as the first popular Indian writer in English.

1917: The Barred Zone Act passes in Congress through two-thirds majority, overriding President Woodrow Wilson's earlier veto. Asians, including Indians, are barred from immigrating to the U.S.

1918: Private Raghunath N. Banawalkar is the first(?) Indian-American recruited/drafted by the US Army on February 25, 1918 and serves in the Sanitary Detachment of the 305th Infantry Regiment, 77th Division, American Expeditionary Forces in France. Gassed while on active service in October 1918 and subsequently awarded Purple Heart medal.[77]

1922: Yellapragada Subbarao, an Andhraite from Andhra Pradesh in Southern India arrived in Boston on October 26, 1922. He discovered the role of phosphocreatine and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in muscular activity, which earned him an entry into biochemistry textbooks in the 1930s. He obtained his Ph.D. degree the same year, and went on to make other major discoveries, including the synthesis of aminopterin (later developed into methotrexate), the first cancer chemotherapy.

1965: President Lyndon Johnson signs the INS Act of 1965 into law, eliminating per-country immigration quotas and introducing immigration on the basis of professional experience and education. Satinder Mullick is one of the first to immigrate under the new law in November 1965—sponsored by Corning Glass Works.

1968: Hargobind Khorana shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for discovering the mechanisms by which RNA codes for the synthesis of proteins. He was then on faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but later moved to MIT.

1981: Suhas Patil co-founded Cirrus Logic, one of the first fabless semiconductor companies.

1983: Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar won the Nobel Prize for Physics ; Asian Indian Women in America[80] attended the first White House Briefing for Asian American Women. (AAIWA, formed in 1980, is the 1st Indian women's organization in North America.)

1987: President Ronald Reagan appoints Joy Cherian, the first Indian Commissioner of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

2008: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson appoints Neel Kashkari as the Interim U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability.

2008: Raj Chetty appointed as professor of economics at Harvard University the age of 29, one of the youngest ever to receive tenure of professorship in the Department of Economics at Harvard. He is one of the top young economists in the world.

2010: Year marks the most number of candidates of Indian origin, running for political offices in the United States, including candidates such as Kamala Harris and Ami Bera.

2010: State Representative Nikki Haley is elected governor of South Carolina, and becomes the first Indian American woman, and second Indian American in general to become Governor of an American state.

In previous decades, Indian Americans were also variously classified as White American, the "Hindu race", and Other.[85] Even today, where individual Indian Americans do not racially self-identify, and instead report Muslim (or a sect of Islam such as Shi'ite or Sunni), Jewish, and Zoroastrian as their "race" in the "Some other race" section without noting their country of origin, they are automatically tallied as white.[86] This may result in the counting of persons such as Indian Muslims, Indian Jews, and Indian Zoroastrians as white, if they solely report their religious heritage without their national origin.

In the 1980s, a gang known as the Dotbusters specifically targeted Indian Americans in Jersey City, New Jersey with violence and harassment.[87] Studies of racial discrimination, as well as stereotyping and scapegoating of Indian Americans have been conducted in recent years.[88] In particular, racial discrimination of Indian Americans in the workplace has been correlated with Indophobia due to the rise in outsourcing/offshoring paranoia, whereby Indian Americans are blamed for US companies offshoring white-collar labor to India.[89][90] According to the offices of the Congressional Caucus on India, many Indian Americans are severely concerned of a backlash, though nothing serious has taken place yet.[90] Due to various socio-cultural reasons, implicit racial discrimination against Indian Americans largely go unreported by the Indian American community.[88]

Numerous cases of religious stereotyping of American Hindus (mainly of Indian origin) have also been documented.[91]

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, there have been scattered incidents of Indian Americans becoming mistaken targets for hate crimes. In one example, a Sikh, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was murdered at a Phoenix gas station by a white supremacist. This happened after September 11, and the murderer claimed that his turban made him think that the victim was a Middle Eastern American. In another example, a pizza deliverer was mugged and beaten in Massachusetts for "being Muslim" though the victim pleaded with the assailants that he was in fact Hindu.[92] In December 2012, an Indian American in New York City was pushed from behind onto the tracks at the 40th Street-Lowery Street station in Sunnyside and killed.[93] The police arrested a woman, Erika Menendez, who admitted to the act and justified it, stating that she shoved him onto the tracks because she believed he was "a Hindu or a Muslim" and she wanted to retaliate for the attacks of Sep 11, 2001.[94]

In 2004, New York Senator Hillary Clinton joked at a fundraising event with South Asians for Nancy Farmer that Mahatma Gandhi owned a gas station in downtown St. Louis, fueling the stereotype that gas stations are owned by Indians and other South Asians. She clarified in the speech later that she was just joking, but still received some criticism for the statement later on for which she apologized again.[95]

On April 5, 2006, the Hindu Mandir of Minnesota was vandalized allegedly on the basis of religious discrimination.[96] The vandals damaged temple property leading to $200,000 worth of damage.[97][98][99]

On August 11, 2006, Senator George Allen allegedly referred to an opponent's political staffer of Indian ancestry as "macaca" and commenting, "Welcome to America, to the real world of Virginia". Some members of the Indian American community saw Allen's comments, and the backlash that may have contributed to Allen losing his re-election bid, as demonstrative of the power of YouTube in the 21st century.[100]

In 2006, then DelawareSenator and current U.S. Vice PresidentJoe Biden was caught on microphone saying: "In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."[101]

Indians are among the largest ethnic groups legally immigrating to the United States. The immigration of Indians has taken place in several waves since the first Indian came to the United States in the 1700s. A major wave of immigration to California from the region of Punjab took place in the first decade of the 20th century. Another significant wave followed in the 1950s which mainly included students and professionals. The elimination of immigration quotas in 1965 spurred successively larger waves of immigrants in the late 1970s and early 1980s. With the technology boom of the 1990s, the largest influx of Indians arrived between 1995 and 2000. This latter group has also caused surge in the application for various immigration benefits including applications for green card. This has resulted in long waiting periods for people born in India from receiving these benefits.

^Goans of the North Atlantic. By Clifford Pereira. In Migration, technology, and transculturation: A global Perspective. Edited by Myna German and Padmini Banerjee. Center for International and Global Studies. 2011. Lindenwood University Press. St. Charles MO, USA. ISBN 978-0-9846307-4-5